Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges is asking the city council to prohibit the use of City funds to travel to Indiana.

“Minneapolis is a welcoming, inclusive city that respects and values the contributions and the safety of everyone who lives, works, and visits here, and the City of Minneapolis as an employer respects and values the same in our employees,” said Mayor Hodges. “I cannot in good conscience support any official travel to Indiana in light of its enacting a law that makes discrimination legal, particularly against LGBT people. (release)

Arkansas has passed a similar law.

Listen to a discussion on what these religious freedom laws say, how they are legally interpreted and what it means in our political landscape.

Today’s Question: Do you support a travel ban to Indiana, or other states with ‘religious freedom’ laws?

Related Questions

I find it odd that we are now in the religious persecution mode, which is why Pilgrims came to America in the first place.

Kay

It would be a lot more effective to approach businesses that have expressed their opposition to the law and ask them to expand or move to Minnesota. Let businesses that need ” religious protection” move or stay in Indiana so they can all live together and have the type of exclusive society they value so highly. I’ll take diversity.

Jim G

Yes. I support this action and the statements made by the Governors of Connecticut, Washington, and New York calling for similar travel bans. Bad laws have bad consequences. Fix this now.

whitedoggie44

waste of time. Better worry about the thugs ruining your CBD and Target relocating to a more tax friendly state.

MNDFLer

The media misconstrued this bill. Try this instead:
What if a Muslim taxi driver refused to transport a MN citizen because they had a bottle of wine in their luggage (that situation already happened at MSP airport) since the so called religion of Islam is against drinking?
What if a Muslim refused to serve someone who came into their printing company asking them to print flyers for the San Fransisco Gay Pride Parade since Islam says its just fine to stone gays and/or kill them? Or if an atheist group asked the Muslim printer to make a huge poster of a likeness depicting the Prophet Mohamed; again, that act is against Islam. Who’s going to demand the Muslims comply they must act against their religion?
What if the liberal left woke up and realized that their own pattern of intolerance of anyone who disagrees with their liberal views is really nothing more than what they accuse the conservatives of being? Hmmm..ever notice when ever the far left make accusations it is usually after_ they themselves have done the very act?

be kind

Yep. Liberals sure are intolerant. For instance, we are in favor of allowing black people to go wherever they want to go.
I like it when there are freeform answers to a question like this. It allows us to see the bigoted and often illiterate and illogical words of our political opponents so we can have a good sardonic laugh and think about what we can do to educate them in the future.

Gary F

How about Florida? Washington DC? Illinois? New Mexico, Arizona, South Carolina? Total of 19 states have these laws. I think they should stop going there too.

How about Cuba? Gay marriage is not allowed there. Homosexuality is outlawed.

How about Muslim countries? Besides homosexuality being banned, they execute homosexuals. Should we even be in treaty negotiations with countries that persecute homosexuals(Iran)? Israel is the only Middle Eastern country that gives homosexuals rights. But the current political let hates Israel.

If you are going to single out Indiana, you better put your money where your mouth is and stop travel to all these states.

KTN

I don’t remember, is Cuba a state, or are Muslim countries under our legal jurisdiction?
Those other states you mention, beside Cuba, do have RFPA, but those were modeled after the federal law, which was enacted to protect some of the lesser religions, Quakers, and Native Americans for instance. The laws were designed to offer individuals to use religion as an excuse to opt out of certain religious exemptions. The Indiana law moves that burden to business too, and that is where the rub is and where the blatant discrimination will find a refuge.

Gary F

Since when has Arkansas or Indiana been under the legal jurisdiction of Mayor Hodges?

AndyBriebart

Do Muslim owned businesses have to accept clients that are GLBT?

Gary F

The CEO of Apple was just outraged over the state of Indiana, but he’s all on board for doing business in Saudi Arabia. Idiot.

Rich in Duluth

No. While I do think that economic sanctions are appropriate between nations trying to avoid war, I think that, within the “family” of states, we shouldn’t get into this kind of retaliatory action. As individuals, we should talk about and criticize these laws, and support court challenges and businesses that boycott states with these laws, but don’t pit one government against another. There is a lot more common ground between states than uncommon ground.

theoacme

If a state passes a law that tends to tell people “hey, it’s okay to hate and kill gays”, then there should be sanctions, not only against that state, but if the US Supreme Court doesn’t tell that state to stop that law, against the fascist unAmericans of the Supreme Court, and its erstwhile supporters as well.

And that’s what Indiana and Arkansas, under the name of Jesus Christ, did – they said “hey, gays, go away, or we’ll cheer when you’re raped and murdered!”

elizsabeth

No, I believe strongly in freedom of conscience and I also do no not believe in discrimination. People who act on their conscience are being discriminated against.

Patti Kimble

Yes. Discrimination should not exist under any circumstances. Jesus taught us to love all people. He even spent his time with sinners. He would never approve of discrimination against anyone.

John Dilligaf

Neither would He cave to political pressure attempting to force Him to adopt something contradictory with His beliefs. He came to seek and save the lost, not support them in their ambitions to lead other lambs into the wilderness.

He came not to overthrow the law, but to fulfill it.

beavertank

What Jesus would, or would not, have done has little bearing on the laws and policies of a secular nation.

John Dilligaf

Until those secular laws (and their interpretation) violate the rights of those who practice a religion, you are correct. What Jesus would, or would not, have done is not up to the legislature or the courts. It is a matter of the believer’s faith and understanding of the gospel, and no one has a right to violate that.

Ulysses Tennyson

I told the Draft Board in Virginia that going to Vietnam to kill people would violate my religious beliefs. They didn’t buy it. I found the Bush/Cheney invasion Iraq deeply offensive from a moral, spiritual, and rational perspective but that didn’t stop them from deducting money from my paycheck to give to their pals at Halliburton, to Ahmad Chalabi, and to the Shiite politicians of Iraq . So glad that Mr. Dilligaf supports my principled religious position in those cases.

John Dilligaf

And yet there were “conscientious objectors” who were assigned duties other than combat. Apparently they saw through the BS. You’ve got me pigeon-holed into the wrong box. I’ll go along with you cutting military spending and extricating ourselves from foreign entanglements where we have dubious reasons for being involved. Will you come with me in reducing the size and scope of the rest of government?

Ulysses Tennyson

I probably would have before the hyper-rich profited so shamelessly from the financial megafiasco they created, blocked intelligent reform of banking and market regulation, gridlocked the government, and insured that America could not take leadership in mitigating the environmental catastrophe we are now in the midst of. What is needed at this moment is not pig-headed demands for reduction of government at all costs but a commitment to making government work. An intelligent reduction of government seems reasonable, but unfortunately we may be headed for another era of crisis like the Civil War and WWs I and II. We may need a stronger government to get us through the coming decades because so much has been put off for so long. My priority for governmental reform is changing the current House districting system and my personal, and probably impractical, suggestion is that they become Statewide contests, like Senate seats. This would require an amendment to the Consttitution, of course.

Ulysses Tennyson

Second and more practical suggestion is that we take House districting out of the hands of State legislators.

Ulysses Tennyson

And if the Norfolk Draft Board was handing out 1-O designations like party favors in 1968 I probably must have stayed home that night. I was ready to go to jail or alternative service but the latter option was never on the table You ladies needn’t pay attention to all this chatter, by the way. Nothing that directly concerns you, but you’re welcome to put in your two cents about female oppression if you have a mind to..

John Dilligaf

And put it where, though?

Ulysses Tennyson

Draw up a board composed of respected non-elected jurists, experts from academia, government and business, retired statesmen who have disqualified themselves from running for office for the next five or ten years, and other community leaders. No current elected officials. Using best practices and empirical data draw up two or more alternative plans for House districts in the State and let voters decide which one they want for the next ten years. There will be unavoidable unintended consequences but it would likely be a big improvement on the current system of gerrymandering. Also free television advertising for any candidate who can meet minimum signature requirements in all elections.

Ulysses Tennyson

Make that “disqualified themselves from running for office for the next ten years.”

theoacme

Probably where you would put women’s rights for everything except to be religiously raped by the Republicans – in Auschwitz.

Ulysses Tennyson

Slaveowners and Southern clergymen could and routinely did quote Scripture in support of slavery and against abolitiionists. Then they started a war that killed hundreds of thousands of Americans and ironically brought about the very increase of centralized power they claimed to be fighting. By not accepting the results of a Constitutionally valid Presidential election. God always seems to be on the side of whoever pays the preacher’s salary. He’s very broadminded that way, apparently.

theoacme

So, would Jesus Christ have helped Adolf Hitler fulfill the Holocaust, which was legal under 1930’s era German law?

Compton7

Nor did he approve of the sinner continuing in his sinful ways. Mary Magdalene for example was told expressly to “go and sin no more.”

Yanotha Twangai

The unnamed woman caught in adultery to whom you refer (John 8) was almost certainly not Mary Magdalene.

Ulysses Tennyson

If you were there I would certainly like to hear more about it.

KTN

Sure, if it causes them to rethink their discriminatory law, then a little pressure on the state’s revenue is fair game.
The RFPA was originally enacted as an answer to SMith v. Employment, and was targeted towards individuals, not business. Indiana now gives business another step towards personhood, and a business ain’t a person (no matter what the Court says).
I applaud those business leader like Tim Cook for taking a stand, and now in Arkansas, Walmart is doing the same to stop a similar bill from being signed by their Governor. If a business can be a person, then those business leaders can most certainly use their clout to pressure the legislatures to act like human beings, and not the bigots they are.

Dunc

Yes. I support travel bans and boycotts for all states that allow discrimination

PaulJ

It makes them sound like a pompous, petty tyrant; such things demand a more delicate touch.

Ulysses Tennyson

Agree. Sounds like a political stunt of possibly dubious legality that may impede legitimate city business. Leave it up to private businesses and individuals. Keep politicians out of it before politicians in every state start slapping sanctions on every other state that has policies their voters disagree with simply to curry favor and demonstrate that they’re politically correct (left) or politically correct (right). I wish the American people would stay focused on the real issue that was left unfinished from the sixties, the status of African-Americans in this country, instead of exploding in righteous zeal over every media-fed “full equality for designated victim group x” incident that will be over in two weeks. Culturally-imbedded racism in this country took centuries to build and at this rate it will take centuries to dismantle. And how about addressing plutocracy? Now that everyone’s got a job again, albeit it at a lower wage, do we just forget about who’s really pulling the strings around here? Oh, but that’s not news.

John Dilligaf

As long as we’re defining plutocrats on both sides of the aisle, because it’s happening on both sides.

And “crony capitalism” isn’t capitalism. It’s corporatism.

“Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.” –Benito Mussolini

Ulysses Tennyson

There are a handful of high-profile billionaires such as George Soros who support liberal causes, a larger handful who support “philanthropic” and personal “gee whiz” projects, and a huge number of high, medium, low, or no-profile billionaires who work ceaselessly to roll back the achievements of the New Deal in bringing greater economic equality and with it greater prosperity, all in the name of “relief for poor overtaxed Americans.” Their real agenda has always been lower taxes for the rich and a lower standard of living for the rest so they can continue to maintain themselves in luxury and power without paying their employees more than a bare living wage. And their sock-puppet for the last hundred and fifty has been the Republican Party.

Ulysses Tennyson

“Hundred and fifty years”, should read. They were the anti-slavery party at first but have been the pro-big-business party ever since the Civil War and the betrayal of African-Americans in the South and have lost any commitment to genuine equality they may have once had.

John Dilligaf

No.

Rich in Duluth

I’m voting this down because it is absurd. Oh, the poor oppressed Christians, who comprise 70% of the U.S. population plus another 10% who consider themselves members if other religions. All of whom can vote. This cartoon ignores the fact, based on the demographics of the religious population, that most of the “oppressors” are also Christian. The GLBT population, represented by the “oppressor” in the cartoon is less than 4% of the population.

End of rant.

John Dilligaf

Yes, and black people can’t be racist.

Ulysses Tennyson

“black people can’t be racist.” What does that have to do with anything?

John Dilligaf

You can’t see the direct correlation to Rich in Duluth’s argument that the GLBT population can’t be the oppressor in any situation because they represent a minority population? You’re smarter than that.

Ulysses Tennyson

The only 4% who could possibly oppress the overwhelming majority are the wealthiest 4%. And they do, but they don’t do it by personally swinging billyclubs and they don’t where armbands to identify themselves as plutocrats.

Ulysses Tennyson

“Wear”, should read. There are no sumptuary laws in this country anymore so anyone can dress as they think the grotesquely wealthy do and vice versa. And they do. So show me a cop with a rainbow armband like I said before, not a cheap right-wing oh-poor-me cartoon .

Rich in Duluth

Any individual can be racist or a bully, but in a society where the volume of the vote determines the law, it takes a large majority to “oppress” a group of people. You know…”the tyranny of the masses” such as slavery was. A civilized society goes out of its way to protect the rights of its minorities.

Ulysses Tennyson

Crude propaganda. Post a real picture of a real cop wearing a rainbow armband beating a real person if you have one. And I avoid the phrase “real Christian” advisedly. There are and always have been too many bigots and cranks hiding behind the Cross that they have probably tarnished the brand beyond redemption. There are would-be followers of Christ who are DFL, who are gay, who are liberal, who are socialist. Live with it. You don’t own the brand so stop trying to lock the doors of the church and claim only the Right is allowed in. This isn’t about religion , it’s about political power and the maintenance of hierarchies.

STARS&STRIPES2016NOW

WE ARE ALL HUMAN BEINGS. ALL HUMANS HAVE THE LITERAL HUMAN RIGHT of RELIGION INCLUDING GAYS LIVING IN THE UNITED STATES. REMEMBER NOW THE UNITED STATES IS MADE UP OF 50 STATES INCLUDING INDIANA. NO PUBLIC BUSINESS HAS THE RIGHT TO BAN OTHER HUMANS BASED ON COLOR, SEX, OR RELIGIOUS FREEDOMS LIBERAL OR CONSERVATIVE. HAVEN’T WE HUMANS LEARNED ENOUGH FROM FERGUSON,ISIS, WWII OR THE STONE WALL RIOTS, OR EVEN THE KLU KLUX KLAN VIOLENCE DURING THE 60’S 70’S 80’S AND 90’S AND NOW. COME ON AMERICA IT ISN’T GOING TO BE SOME TERRORIST GROUP THAT DESTROYS THIS COUNTRY ITS GOING TO BE THE BIGOT WORKING AS A GOVERNOR, OR PRESIDENT OR SOME DUMB FASCIST POLITICIAN TAKING AWAY OUR HUMAN FREEDOM TO LIVE . HAVE SOME BALLS AND DO NOT LET THIS HAPPEN HUMAN BEINGS. TAKE CHARGE OF YOUR HUMAN LIVES. IT’S 2015 NOW. THIS IS FOR REAL AND ITS FOR SURVIVAL NOW!!! THE REVOLUTION IS ALWAYS GOING ON NOW. FUTURE NOW AND TODAY AND FOREVER…..PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN!!! SEE YOU ALL AT THE VOTING POLLS 2016 NOW

Ulysses Tennyson

have some already, but thanks for offering

Charles

With all the news coverage about this situation I have yet to hear a clear explanation of what the proposed law actually says. Mostly it consists of what people think it says, or the discrimination it may lead to, which may be valid. I cannot endorse denying someone food in a restaurant because they are gay but see a distinction when it comes to being forced to make a cake for a same sex wedding, or even provide flowers for the same if you do not agree with same sex unions. In such a case you are participating in a formal ceremony and would be seen as such as endorsing something you strongly disagree with. People do have a right to follow their conscience in this society. Would a black pastry shop owner be pressured to provide a cake for a Klan ceremony? Perhaps a Jewish baker should be forced to make a cake for a Nazi white supremacist wedding complete with a swastika on top. The point is that issues of sincere conscience need to be respected. If the Indiana law is clearly designed to give a convenient base for overt persecution it should certainly be amended or thrown out. A way needs to be provided for thoughtful, sincere objection based on religious belief. We do that for Muslims, Jews, Christians, and even atheists in some cases.

Gary F

Now why would the media report the details when they have got all this ginned up hysteria over this subject?

John Dilligaf

The law asserts, “[N]o human authority can, in any case or manner whatsoever, control or interfere with the right of conscience.” Furthermore, the state “shall not substantially burden a person’s right to exercise of religion … unless it is demonstrated that applying the substantial burden … (1) Is essential to further a compelling governmental interest; and (2) Is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.”

K-Ann

I would like a list of all the businesses and celebrities that drove Ind and Ark to repeal their religious freedom laws so I can boycott them. I’m sick of liberal haters trying to eliminate the right to believe in God.

Ulysses Tennyson

I just hate them haters too and have a half a mind to boycott all them hateful liberal hatespewers an stick to Fox TV an beer that ain’t brewed by no hate-peddlin homosexual hate-tards. So there.

MNDFLer

Our expanded Religious Freedom law has been around a long time, Bill Clinton signed it.
Ah, but Hillary as Secretary fo State, illegally accepted millions to the Clinton Foundation from terrible middle east countries that deny women’s rights, deny gay rights and have supported radical Islam, all while she was Secretary. What does that say about a Democrat presidential candidate to be? Even MPR is more concerned with this new Indianna trivial bill than they are concerned with more serious issues; e.g. Hillary’s scams, illegally destroying State Dept. gov’t emails and they also seem to ignore Harry Reed’s latest admission that he blatantly LIED in Congress speaking about Mit Romney’s tax record, all to push for Obama’s re-election. When the White House was asked about this, the sound of crickets was deafening. The real question should be, ” How do we prevent politicians from unethical blatant lying to affect elections?”

Gary F

Just why did she accept money from all those countries that have such horrendous histories of treating homosexuals?

Think NPR will ever ask?

kevins

Did she get the money?

AndyBriebart

That is the huge question. The foundation refuses to release the proper documents that foundations are supposed to release.

Lex

Muslims just shot to death 150 Christian college students in Kenya. Wake me when our tolerance problems aren’t mostly petty bullshit.

theoacme

When Joel Osteen is murdered by the Gay Liberation Front, by being tied to a fence somewhere in Wyoming, and beaten to death, then get back to me about the Republican Nazis in Indiana and Arkansas being petty bullshit.

James

Such a painful discussion. MPR, please post another question. Maybe about the outcome of the Final 4.
My take on this. There is a federal and reasonable (more on that later) Religious Freedom statute. Why Indiana would feel the need to go further is bizarre. I suspect the governor did not read the legislation before signing it. This is sort of “much ado about nothing,” except unfortunately it isn’t. Even well intended laws get stretched and interpreted by courts in unimaginable ways. This Indiana law, which isn’t well intended (it’s actually homophobia wrapped up in a religious cloak), is just BS and should be repealed. I suspect Mayor Hodges may have better things to do than bash Indiana, but having said that, the bashing only took about 5 minutes of her time and will probably work.
Back to the reasonableness of any Religious Freedom statute. Personally, I want Freedom from Religion, not Freedom of Religion. I am so tired of people interpreting the bible as they see fit, and making important life choices for me. I am so tired of differentiating clothing. Kind of like sex. I could care less what goes on behind closed doors, but please stop rubbing my nose in it.

theoacme

And that means, freedom from religion, that the Republican Party, as presently constituted, is unconstitutional, and every candidate or contributor or officeholder or party member that doesn’t condemn these Nazi laws in Indiana and Arkansas should be banned forever from holding any office or public trust.